A page from Russian propaganda textbook: that there is an American side and a Russian side to each conflict, but there is no such thing as an Ukrainian (or any other) side. The rest of the world is not real.
This allows you to ignore everything that happens, and focus on the important question: are you a brainwashed sheep that uncritically believes the evil American propaganda, or are you an independently thinking contrarian? Obviously, the former is low-status and the latter is high-status. But first you have to agree with all the other independently thinking contrarians in order to be recognized as one of them.
We can talk about the sophisticated propaganda methods of the future, but in the meanwhile, it is the simple ones that work best, when applied persistently.
Thanks for pointing this out. I don’t know much about US-Russia affairs outside of the US-China context, including Russian propaganda, so I wouldn’t have known about that dynamic even if I had more space to write about it.
It’s always helpful to see various state ideologies and propaganda tactics summarized.
We can talk about the sophisticated propaganda methods of the future, but in the meanwhile, it is the simple ones that work best, when applied persistently.
Also, just to clarify, this post is about the propaganda methods of the present (specifically the late 2010s), not the future. Also, this post thoroughly disproves the idea that persistence is the “best”; empiricism and optimization power are the best, and modern automated systems are overwhelmingly capable of optimizing for measurable results.
A page from Russian propaganda textbook: that there is an American side and a Russian side to each conflict, but there is no such thing as an Ukrainian (or any other) side. The rest of the world is not real.
This allows you to ignore everything that happens, and focus on the important question: are you a brainwashed sheep that uncritically believes the evil American propaganda, or are you an independently thinking contrarian? Obviously, the former is low-status and the latter is high-status. But first you have to agree with all the other independently thinking contrarians in order to be recognized as one of them.
We can talk about the sophisticated propaganda methods of the future, but in the meanwhile, it is the simple ones that work best, when applied persistently.
Thanks for pointing this out. I don’t know much about US-Russia affairs outside of the US-China context, including Russian propaganda, so I wouldn’t have known about that dynamic even if I had more space to write about it.
It’s always helpful to see various state ideologies and propaganda tactics summarized.
Also, just to clarify, this post is about the propaganda methods of the present (specifically the late 2010s), not the future. Also, this post thoroughly disproves the idea that persistence is the “best”; empiricism and optimization power are the best, and modern automated systems are overwhelmingly capable of optimizing for measurable results.